Three scientist discovered a simple formula that, if true, established an unexpected relationship between some of the most basic and important objects in linear algebra. The physicists — Stephen Parke of Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Xining Zhang of the University of Chicago and Peter Denton of Brookhaven National Laboratory — had arrived at the mathematical formula while grappling with the strange behavior of particles called neutrinos. They’d noticed that hard-to-compute terms called “eigenvectors,” describing, in this case, the ways that neutrinos propagate through matter, were equal to combinations of terms called “eigenvalues,” which are far easier to compute. Moreover, they realized that the relationship between eigenvectors and eigenvalues — ubiquitous objects in math, physics and engineering that have been studied since the 18th century — seemed to hold more generally.
Source: Neutrinos Lead to Unexpected Discovery in Basic Math
07 Nov 2020, 2:48 pm
